warren ellis on itunes for windows

From An interview with Warren Ellis : The Setup:

I hate iTunes for Windows. I have to use it to sync my iPhone. iTunes for Windows is why I've never considered buying a Mac. iTunes for Windows should be a glittering example of The Apple Way for Windows users. Instead, it's a clunky, stupid, greedy, ugly shitbox of an application that makes Windows users hate Apple. They make a nice phone, sure, but iTunes for Windows ensures that I'll never let Apple near a critical workflow.

But I'm stuck with it, because I need it to organise, appify and sync my iPhone. Bastards.

("Appify" is a real word that I just made up. I've won awards for writing. Shut up.)

I personally believe that the first step to improving things would be to see to it that, every Monday morning, on arriving for work, the iTunes For Windows dev team were punched in the throat by Liam Neeson.

Note that "buy a mac" is not a solution for the problem. One of the reasons the Mac world is so culty is people accept buying more products as a valid way to resolve problems with the ones you already have. It doesn't solve anything, it just rewards Apple for doing a shitty job.

When the iPhone arrived and started merrily kicking other devices off the network, people said "buy an airport!". When the still-under-contract iPhone 3G got ruined by the irreversible iOS update, people said "buy an iPhone 4".

What? No! When a company has just given you a product that doesn't work or fucked up a product you already own, how does it make sense to reward them with another purchase? When other companies pull that shit, people scream bloody murder.

So anyway. iTunes is many peoples' first exposure to Mac software and it's really pretty annoying (plus it's a really bad guest which incessantly tries to invite its mates in - no, I don't need Mobile Me, quit asking!). I can only guess Apple's apathy towards making it better is a result of the iPod's massive success. Why bother making it better? People keep buying iPods anyway...